


the names we used to know

by ikijai



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, PTSD, Post-Daredevil S2, Post-Defenders, Tension, kind of introspective, post-Punisher s1, yet another time jump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 06:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikijai/pseuds/ikijai
Summary: Turns out, he isn't the only phantom in town who just doesn't know how to stay dead.[or: Frank finds out The Devil isn't dead + discovers who Jigsaw is + other things]





	the names we used to know

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).
> 
> This takes place about a year post-Punisher s1 and nearly two years post-Daredevil s2. It's totally theoretical.

David’s kitchen table is a simpler place to Pete. It's more domestic, less obviously tainted in too many forms of torment, dejection from weeks spent in too many places of decay.

It's why they're able to pretend they didn't plan illegal operations in some dingy old basement together less than a year ago. It's why being partners is okay despite what's transpired.

“I don't know, David,” Frank utters, taps his knuckles against the top of a warm jack daniels, kicks his foot under the table’s wooden surface before he knows he's doing it.

“Oh, come on Frank,” David pleads, wide eyes too much feigned innocence and not enough dignity. “The kids really want you to. Zach’s been talking about it for days.”

Frank snorts deep in his throat, throws his drink back with an uttered _jesus christ_. “You gotta use those kids against me every damn time, don't you?”

Over the past several weeks, Frank’s discovered that it’s nice to jab at each other without any real threat behind it. They don't talk about his personal death toll or where they'd be if David never decided to track him down. They don't talk about why this works when it didn't used to.

The urge to be out there, to _kill_ , is something like a thrum under his skin when he thinks about the wrong thing at the wrong time. But things are different, Frank tells himself. That part is over.

David’s upper lip twitches like he’ll smile, but he keeps it down. The prick wouldn't know what backing down was if it kicked him square in the jaw. “Yeah, well. It works, doesn't it?”

“Yeah,” Frank sighs deep, inhales oxygen through his nostrils to ease the inevitable tension that comes with people trying to keep him around like he's a stray dog that'll bolt through the door at the wrong tone. “Yeah, it does, you asshole.”

David shrugs, loosens his posture from where he leans over the other side of the table. He watches with a kind of temporary pensiveness, drink in one hand as the other taps a pen incessantly.

Things are different with David, too. He's back where he belonged the whole time, isn't droopy likes he's too old. The prick still talks just as much, though. But it doesn't infuriate him the way it used to even if he tries to maintain the impression that it does.

“There's a reason you keep turning up here,” David pushes, head tilted in that obnoxious, intelligent way that pisses Frank off. “And it definitely isn't because I don't know how to put things back together or because you own thousands of tools and don't have anything better to do.” David pauses, puffy head tilted impossibly further when Frank tightens his knuckles in a way that definitively says _I’m not intimidated by you_. “Your words.”

“That it?”

“Yup.”

Frank’s teeth clench, but it isn't out of irritation. His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. He thinks he's nodding up and down, knows it when David is pleased. He feels his defenses dying and he feels like _Pete_ and it's goddamn terrifying.

“There you go,” David says, pats Frank on the back less-than-politely and lets the smile spread wide over his face, dumb twinkle in his eye as he does. “Dinner Thursday. Just don't be late or—”

“Your wife’ll kick my ass and hand it to me backwards,” Frank interrupts. It's impressive how familiar this drill is. Underwhelming, even. “I know, David.”

He reaches out to shove the taller man when he starts talking too much, isn't taken aback when his partner doesn't twitch, instead pushing him back and dodging the next one with a deep laugh.

“Don't drink too much,” David says, but he's already on his way to being intoxicated. “You punched me the last time.”

“Yeah, well,” Frank utters, bumps their drinks together when David holds out his. “You deserved it.”

David shrugs in spite of himself, one hand pulled through his wild tresses when he makes the declaration. “I'll drink to that.”

Frank feels his own lip twitch up as he watches David get drunk during the day like an idiot and doesn't try to stop it.

  
                                  ..

  
He ducks his head when there’s too many people outside, jumps from _Queens_ to _Hell’s Kitchen_ to _Midtown_ on what's got to be a daily basis at this point. He doesn't visit the park anymore, doesn't let those plastic horses ingrain themselves into his mind more than they've already tried to.

It's impossible to ignore what this place still does to him, though putting himself to use makes things somewhat okay. He signs himself up for projects downtown, takes his irritability out on inanimate objects instead of people. But he'll only do physical work, tear down buildings instead of push through desk jobs because a tie is a noose and he's too infamous.

  
                                    ..

  
Showing up to group therapy is the thing he tends to do when he thinks he's teetering on the edge again, when his wife drifts into his dreams like a knife to the gut.

None of the others judge him, don't stare with terror or downcast their eyes when he drags himself through the doorway. Still, he’s got an unshakable inkling that he's only physically there, the psychological parts, the important parts, outside.

But this whole thing is a work in progress, he tells himself, over and over because it's still difficult to accept as truth.

Curt looks at him like he knows, but it isn't pity that decorated his features. It's understanding. It's intuition only those who've been to war would pick up on immediately.

 _That's insightful, Pete_ , his friend says when he decides to talk, keeping up appearances though Frank’s nearly positive the new kid who sits by the door knows who he is. But this is a place of privacy and trust. Frank knows deep down that nobody who sits in the tiny circle every Tuesday night would talk.

None of it changes the pounding in his temple or the tremble to his fingers, but it does bring him some distorted type of peace.

  
                                  ..

  
He picks up the latest Bulletin while he's out, let's his lip tick up at the corner when he sees Karen’s name plastered on the top of the page, doesn't care that his thumb smudges the ink where he touches it. The main story is titled _Underground Heroes_ , and he's got to shake his head back and forth at Karen still believing in that kind of thing.

He continues through the traffic, thinks he's imagining it when he passes a 12x12 poster detailing the life of the _Fearless Daredevil_. He’s wrongly portrayed, peering down at all the people in the drawing like some all powerful being. They'd probably get a kick out the fact that their fearless vigilante was a doppelgänging blind man with enough catholic guilt to swallow Hell’s Kitchen whole.

  
                                   ..

  
Frank talks to Karen less often than he wants to. She's busy with her promotion and he's busy thinking everything important to him will be taken while his back is turned. The day he almost got her killed for the thousandth time places a kind of distance between them. They try to ignore it, inevitably faltering because it's not that simple for people like them.

They decide to meet today, though, because Frank can't take David’s incessant pestering or because Karen makes his chest tight like he's an individual worthy of another person’s time. He dials her number instead of knocking on her door at 10pm like some junkie in need of another fix.

“It's been a while since I've seen you without a black eye,” she says, leaning over the railing by the waterfront in a way that's become their thing. “Or maybe it's just too dark out to tell.”

There’s a smile threatening to show as she speaks, but it’s impossible to tell if she's joking.

“Yeah, Kare,” he utters back, thinks he's smiling too. “It's good to see you too, y’know.”

They bump shoulders on purpose, yet he still utters a _sorry_ when they touch.

“I was getting to that.” It's obvious she's teasing this time because she bites down on her lip, pushes into him playfully with a twinkle in her blue depths.

Frank ducks his head, let's himself settle down. “Read your piece in the paper.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you think?” she presses, eyebrows knit tightly together like she's waiting for him to denounce her entire investigative journalist career.

He resists the urge to snort because she's still insecure about her job despite the fact that her work is impeccable, that she practically owns the office space she occupies more often than not.

“Terrible,” he utters, can't keep the joke out of his tone when she's ducking her head and trying not to smile. “Just the worst thing I've ever picked up. Yeah, definitely want my money back.”

“Thanks, Frank.”

“No problem,” he says. Then he takes a pause because he knows what he's about to ask usually makes her tense. “You taking care of yourself?”

“I am.”

“Good,” he says just as she says, “Are you, too? Taking care of yourself?”

“Only way I know how,” he tells her, inhales deeply and pulls his jacket hood tighter over his head when the wind threatens to pull it off.

“Good.” She keeps her tone even when she uses the word, something he doesn't know how to do yet. There's doubt in her eyes, though. It's transparent and makes him want to shut his.

Then Karen’s pulling him into her arms without warning. He doesn't twitch this time, just holds on tight.

“I mean it, Frank,” she whispers when their temples touch. “It's important.”

“I know, Karen,” he utters, feels his throat tighten when he pulls back and sees the undeniable truth in her daze.

  
They're back at her place when she asks if he wants a drink. They descend into their old habit of speaking in low tones when it's just the two them. They don't have to watch their backs, but they still do.

Karen talks about the friends she's made in the past year, Jessica and Trish and others.

“It's been interesting,” she says, warmly though there's something distorted to it.

Frank doesn't to push the issue. If she wants to tell him about it, he thinks, she will. Instead, he talks about private things because he trusts her too much.

“You're still keeping in touch with David Lieberman, then?” she inquires when the topic comes up.

He ducks his head involuntarily. “Yeah,” he says. “I, uh, I'm having dinner at his place this Thursday.”

The pride in her eyes beats the instinct telling him to look anywhere but into them. The incident in the diner over a year ago didn't take that away. The one where he’d dragged a man into the woods. The incident with Wilson.

Things are different, but not too different. Karen still looks at him with tenderness instead of terror, still utters his name like she gives a damn. Whether he deserves it, he thinks, is another thing.

Then he's talking about group therapy, how it's watered down things that’d been too difficult to deal with. Karen listens intently, brushing a thumb over his bruise-free knuckles while he's distracted with talking. She takes a sip of her own drink and tells him it’d be nice to meet the other people in his life, too.

It's good and it's painful, because he doesn't know if it's the type of thing that'll dwindle down or die a painful death while he watches from a distance.

  
                                  ..

  
He parks his truck a block outside the thick line where Midtown turns into The Kitchen, is walking through a back alley when he gets the unshakable inkling that there’s someone else there. The devil himself turns up like some ironic testimony.

Turns out, he isn't entirely out of touch with his instincts. Turns out he isn't the only phantom in town who just doesn't know how to stay dead.

It's dark but Red is clear as day. He's untouched, hanging from a pipe twenty feet into the sky and the furthest thing from dead.

The devil defies the laws of physics, jumping down in front of Frank with no trouble. The other man’s head is immediately titling as if to inspect him. Frank takes him in, too. He’d think it's odd to see him after all this time and a supposed death if it weren't for the fact that it's the way they used to bump into each other back in the day. They'd fought in the same city, in the same towns against the same people. It's inevitable for them to cross paths.

“Would you look at that,” he utters.

Frank’s looking directly at the devil but he's thinking about Karen, about her other lawyer friend and the whole damn city and whether they know, too. Unlikely, he thinks. It'd be all over t.v., would be the only thing city dwellers discussed.

Though the other man wears a mask to disguise his identity, the surprise is there in his tone. “Thought you were gone, Frank.”

 _Touché_ , he thinks. But they're long past that kind of talk. “You disappointed?”

The devil shakes his head back and forth, slight twist to his lips that Frank thinks would be teasing if things were different. “It looks like neither of us could walk away, then.”

“I knew you couldn't.” Frank clears his throat when Red takes too many steps forward at once. He’s too obviously prepared for a fight. It's probably why he's out in the first place.

“You trying to get to Jigsaw, too?”

“Don't know what you're talkin’ ‘bout, Red.”

“Oh,” the other man utters, something like shock dancing in his tone and more words at the tip of his tongue until he decides not to speak.

 _Jigsaw_. It pokes at the back of Frank’s disarrayed mind like a demand to know more, but he ignores it.

“You're back at it then, yeah?” he says instead. “Decided not to go back to your day job?”

“I couldn't do that even if I wanted to,” Red says, tilting his head toward the dark sky with a deep sigh.

“Yeah, why's that?”

“People think I'm dead, Frank.”

Frank dismisses the urge to snort, watching the devil jitter in place like he's deciding whether or not to take off. The tension is palpable, the alley getting tinier and tinier as they lessen the distance between them. “Guess the whole on and off vigilante thing got too difficult, huh? Lawyer gig wasn't paying the bills?”

For someone who perches on the tops of skyscrapers, the devil’s dread is transparent. “You knew,” he says. It's all statement, zero inquiry. They both knew.

“My blind defense attorney showing up to trial all beaten the day after the _Devil of Hell's Kitchen_  got his ass kicked? That know-it-all pain-in-the-ass way you talk to people? Yeah, see, it wasn't too difficult to put together.”

They dance around each other, wary to keep a yard between them. Things are different, yeah. It doesn't mean they weren't on opposite sides back then, doesn't mean they probably still aren't.

“I thought you didn't give a damn about who I was.”

“Didn't— _don't_ ,” Frank utters. “Doesn't mean it wasn't obvious.”

The other man twitches.

“You want to know something, Red? You're not as good at pretending as you think.”

“Then why didn't you tell anybody?”

“Jesus Christ,” Frank says, not under his breath this time. “I gotta say everything twice, Red? You said it yourself. I didn't give a damn about who you were then and I sure as hell don't now.”

“Then why’re we both out here tonight, Frank? Why didn't you take off the instant you noticed me?” The devil demands, then keeps going like the wannabe psychologist he is. “You come out here pretty often too, don't you? Is it because you're still The Punisher? Is it because you're not done yet?”

Frank takes a deep breath, knuckles tightening from where they touch his thighs. It's almost 12 and he's got dinner plans with a family that's too invested in him tomorrow and this, this on top of everything makes it difficult. “You still don't know when to stop digging, do you?”

The other man’s stance isn't so tall now. He goes so still that for an instant, he _does_ look dead.

His next words take Frank aback. They're out of nowhere, dirtied with shame. “I didn't think you were insane, Frank.”

Frank takes a step back, eyebrows knitting together. “What’re you talking about?” he whispers, but he knows.

“I didn't think you were insane,” the devil utters again. The words are slow to enter Frank’s mind, infuriating when they do. “I was upset—”

“ _What're you trying to tell me?_ ” Frank interrupts, grits the words through his teeth like they’re disgusting.

“I'm trying to say I didn't mean the things I told you back then.”

Even after having a building dropped on top of him, the devil is too-obviously stuck in his old ways, unconsciously confessing like he's speaking to a priest during the sacrament of penance and not the killer he used to despise.

Frank’s insides tighten in discomfort. There's a part of him that wants the words to mean something, to outweigh the thousands of other times he's been called psychotic by those who wouldn't know the difference. But they don't. There was a time and a place for that, a time when the words might've dug in deep, but it isn't now. It's too late for this pact bullshit.

Back then, they fought side by side despite their painfully obvious differences. Tonight, they stand inches apart and pretend to understand each other.

Red’s good at it, though. Making a thing something it isn't. Making it transparent.

_How long’s it been? Six months? A year? Or you're whole life?  
You know, no one else has to die._

Frank’s got to swallow down the knot in his throat, ignore the thud in his veins. He tells himself it's enough, that Murdock means it even if the devil doesn't.

“That was a long time ago, Red. Take it easy with the doc shit.”

“It was,” the other man utters, head dipped. “But I still wanted you to know.”

 _I was wrong_ , his tone says. But the sentiment remains silent.

Red’s head tilts again, tuned into something Frank’s ears, as trained as they are, don't pick up on. He doesn't think he'll ever understand that, those inhuman parts to Red that transcend even their kind of normality. Maybe he really is the devil, Frank thinks.

Then, as soon as Red emerged from the dark, he’s disappearing into it.

“I need to go,” he utters, low like it'll burn his tongue if he says it too loud. He pauses before he's gone entirely, head turned so only his devil-horned profile shows. His tone is despondent, honest despite it all. “It's good to know you're okay, Frank.”

The instant the other man is out of sight, there's an uneasiness prowling in his gut. It tells him he isn't positive he meant it when he’d said _I’ll see you around_ on that building top. During the drive back, he wonders if he'd really seen the devil or if seeing dead people is just another tell tale sign of inner deterioration.

 _Jigsaw_ teases his mind, too. If he followed Red, he'd probably take him directly to whoever or whatever it is. But he's done taking part in those kind of things, he tells himself. If Jigsaw’s dirty, it isn't his problem.

  
                                  ..

 

His identity is fucked up, all over the place. He tries to hold onto what’s left of it the only way he knows how. He thinks, looks at old photographs until the insomnia doesn't beat the desire to sleep more than two hours at a time.

His dad called him Francis when he'd get in trouble as a kid. His wife would call him Frankie when she was tired or smiling too much, just _Frank_ with no temperance when she’d be pissed. It’s what Bill called him, too. What he kept calling him after things were different and it became tainted. After he deceived him.

But Pete, Pete isn't inked into too many people’s minds. Pete isn't invulnerable or familiar when it's uttered by a waitress at 4 am or a business owner when he quits his job for the dozenth time. Even when the kids say it like he's their damn uncle who's been away too long, like he's _important_ , it doesn't feel like he owns it.

It's just a detached name.

  
                                   ..

  
Dinner with David’s family is difficult to get through no matter how many times he’s talked into it until he gives in. He shows up with just himself and no dishes like some kind of self-proclaimed dick.

He keeps it together when Leo hugs him tight, talking about the book she started yesterday, doesn’t twitch when Zach drags him into the parlor to show him some new PS4 game.

They sit down to eat eventually, some pasta dish that tastes too good when all Frank’s eaten for the past few days is take out. He smiles when the kids make jokes, says thank you when David’s wife pours him more wine.

But then there’s David staring at his profile, depths of blue darker than usual like he knows there’s something wrong. Frank juts his chin out, eyes traveling to the other room. _We’ll talk about it after_ , it says, and David seems to understand. Spending too much time in a basement together tuned them into each other in undefinable ways.

  
“What’s up?” David begins the instant they’re alone in the kitchen. “You looked kind of tense in there.”

Frank takes a deep breath, looking toward the doorway to make sure that the kids are still preoccupied with the t.v.

“I know maybe inviting you to dinner was asking too much—”

“It’s not that, David. I don’t have a problem with that.”

The taller man leans against the dishwasher, goes to pull at his tresses until he seems to think better of it. For once, he stops talking, eyebrows knit together as he waits for what Frank’s about to drop.

“You heard of _Jigsaw?_ ”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Frank nods at that, starts to pace back and forth until he thinks he’ll wear through the soles of his boots.

“Frank,” David enunciates, too uncertain. “ _Do we need to worry about this?_ ”

“I don’t think so,” he utters. “I don’t know.”

“How’d you hear about this, uh,” David clears his throat. “This _Jigsaw_? Do you know who it is?”

“Lets just say I was tipped off, yeah?” Frank says, taking a sigh of relief when David doesn’t dispute it. “Don’t know who it is, though. Don’t know what to look out for.”

“I think I know what you’re getting at,” his partner whispers. “But Frank,” he says, laughs ironically and points to the laptop on the table behind them. “I haven’t touched any of that since—”

“I know, David,” Frank utters. “Listen, I can't tell you what to do—”

“There's a first.”

“I just—I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important, okay?”

David goes silent, outwardly thinking until Frank feels impatience like a hot iron. “If you don’t know who this is, what difference does it make? Why do you care?”

“I don’t know, I just got a weird feeling about this, y’know?” Frank whispers. “I just need to know.”

 _I’ll do it_ is unspoken but blatant in the downcast to David's eyes. The other man takes a deep breath the same time Frank lets out the one he didn’t know he’d been holding in.

He stops pacing then, leaning his upper body over the other side of the countertop.

David knows him too well because his eyebrows are still knit together, head tilted slightly where it rests in his unsteady palm.

Frank ducks his head to his chest, whispers because he knows he's asking too much. “You been keeping tabs on Madani, yeah?”

“Yeah,” David shrugs, takes a sip of his drink. “I do every now and then. But that’s—”

“It’s not different, David. It’s the same damn thing.”

Frank feels himself getting worked up, hands trembling as he bites down on his tongue. He hates when the prick is right, which these days, is too often. His knuckle is about to come down on the desk when David raises both his hands in a truce and nods to the other room where his family would definitely hear it.

“I just,” Frank sighs, trying not yell. “Whatever information you can dig up would be good.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” David jokes despite everything, pen tucked between his teeth as he types. “I’m already working on it.”

Frank inhales deeply, lets the tension ease out of his shoulders and tries to convince himself that asking David to do this after just getting his family back is okay.

He ducks his head again, turning away from the bright screen because it makes him think of the distinct odor of dead bodies on top of each other in the basement.

“Thank you,” he utters.

  
                                  ..

  
Karen’s irises burn permanent holes through him. The rest of the diner might as well be nonexistent under his taunt jaw, knuckles digging involuntarily into the table until they throb. She’s saying something important but it’s difficult to hear, difficult to process.

“I only pulled the trigger because I didn’t have a choice,” she utters, tony steady, terrified underneath. She’s nodding up and down like she’s trying to believe it’s undoubtedly the truth. “It was him or me. I picked him.”

“Karen,” Frank says when he thinks he can talk, tries to ignore the pounding in his temple and the urge to look outside and at other tables like she’s doing. “What’re you tellin’ me?”

“I killed James Wesley.”

Frank clears his throat to speak again when she beats him to the punch. “And I think Wilson Fisk knows. I think he’ll come after me eventually. I think he’ll try to kill me for what I did.”

She’s looking at him like she’s waiting to be judged, tragic eyes wide and terrified and it pisses him off. He thought she’d know better than to think that. They've accepted the dark parts in each other from the start, unconsciously or otherwise.

He wants to yell, at those who put her in this position and those who didn’t do anything to make it okay. Instead, his tone turns to a whisper, fists untightening as he ducks his head to keep eye contact with her.

“What’re you doing thinkin’ like that? What’s making you think that?”

He swears he sees her physically untense. She takes a deep breath, taps the table with her thumb and looks directly at him. The shock is written all over, the paleness to her face, the tilt to her head at his unphasedness. But it disappears as soon as it showed itself, transforming into a debilitating, unadulterated dread.

“I don’t know,” she says, and he tries not to watch her thin frame tremble. “Maybe I’m being paranoid, but, I feel like I’ve been—” she pauses, peering around though no one’s paying attention. “I feel like I’ve been being _watched_ , you know? And I don’t have proof, but, I can’t shake the feeling that if I peer over my shoulder at the wrong moment on my way to work or to Trish’s place, one of his men will be there to get the job done.”

She pauses again, lip tucked between her teeth so tightly he sees the skin turn white. “It’s been over a year. But yeah, I think he knows.”

The words sink deep into Frank’s overworked mind, fingers tightening over the edge of the table as he swallows down the urge to panic. “Fisk’s in prison. He’s put away, he’s—”

“What if he gets out?” she whispers, wraps her jacket tighter around herself. “I mean, you and I both know pretty damn well that prison isn’t a permanent thing in The Kitchen—especially not a power-tripped one like Ryker’s Island. Fisk could pay off officers, he could get out on goddamn _parole_ if he wanted to.”

Karen pauses when the waitress comes back, nods politely like they’re not discussing life or death in the back of an old diner. The older woman in the uniform pretends not to notice that neither of them have touched their drinks, heading back to counter instead of pressing the issue. “Who knows, maybe I deserve—”

“ _Karen_.”

It’s enough to stop her in her tracks.

“You don’t fuckin’ deserve that. Don’t you talk like that. That piece of shit’s not coming after you, okay? Not on my watch. Not on—” he stops before he can utter Murdock, Red, _The Devil_ , because he doesn’t know if she knows yet or because it isn't his place to tell her. “It just ain’t happening, you got that?”

“I’ve killed, Frank,” she deadpans, tone enough to shake his defenses. “I’ve done terrible, unspeakable things. I did that and I have to deal with it everyday.”

He thinks about what her words imply about what _he’s_ done, but temporarily, today, he doesn’t give a damn about that. Not when she’s terrified or when he can’t do a damn thing about it while pretending to be a man named _Pete_. A man who doesn’t hold a torch to his true identity. Not when he thinks about David’s kids and how possible it is for him to be taken from them again if things take the slightest turn for the worst. David doesn’t doesn’t tie into Fisk in any shape or form, either. But now that Frank’s got people to take care of, he thinks of them in the face of all kinds of danger.

“Did you tell anybody else about this?”

“You're the only one.”

He feels his insides still before he’s inhaling deeply through his nose in a way that does nothing to make any of this okay. He can see right through Karen, can see that she understands danger but not how to keep away from it. The two of them have that in common, he thinks. They’re trailblazers for this kind of thing.

“Jesus christ,” he utters under his breath, tries and fails to take it all in at once. She could've told anybody, could've told one of her friends, but she picked him, instead. “Why’d you tell me this, Karen?”

“Because I trust you,” she says immediately, and it warms him, makes him wish he could implicitly be someone people could trust. “Because I’ve been keeping it to myself for too damn long and it’s killing me inside. It gets so goddamn _bad_ , Frank. And I know,” she takes a moment, breathes in deep through parted lips for the upteenth time. “I know you understand how bad it gets, too.”

Then there are tears threatening to spill and it’s another thing he can’t do a damn thing about. He’d reach out and wipe them if there weren’t so much distance.

“Because nobody else would understand and because it was too easy to kill him and—” her words tremble, but she keeps going. “And what if I keep being dragged into all this as, as penitence or something? I mean, I write about these kinds of men, Frank. I called them _terrorists_. It only makes sense that they would—”

“That’s bullshit,” Frank interrupts, keeping his voice low so they don’t draw attention. “That’s one thick pile of bullshit and you know it, Page.”

“Then tell me I’m wrong.”

His eyes turn downcast then. They both know he can’t tell her that, not after what he’s done, what he’s taken. He’s been living out his own kind of torture since that day in the park, pushing himself in unimaginable, unutterable ways. Things he wouldn’t tell Karen or David or Curtis, things he never told—

“Yeah,” Karen interrupts. “That’s what I expected.”

“Karen, I—”

“Don’t,” she says, and she means it. And she isn’t upset, but that doesn't mean he isn't. “I understand. I just needed you to, too.”

He wants to tell her that between the two of them, he’s the one who deserves to be terrified. But his throat is tight and won’t let the words out.

They dig into their pockets for dollar bills, tip the waitress with fake smiles and head outside when there’s cloud cover. Instinctually, he pulls his hood up. It's been over a year since his public _death_ but he's just as paranoid, just as unwilling to push it.

He and Karen part ways at the intersection between the place she calls home and he calls hell. There’s an unspoken truce that he’ll do whatever it takes to protect her, but they don’t touch before they’re going opposite directions.

  
                                  ..

  
In his dream, his wife tells him how big their toddler is getting over the phone while he’s stationed in Iraq, how intelligent he is though he isn’t a year old yet. _He’s trying to walk_ , she tells him. _But I think he’s waiting for his dad to come back_. For the first time in a while, she doesn’t die at the end of it. He isn’t pulling the trigger, isn’t wailing with dead bodies cradled in his trembling arms.

He still wakes up with tears threatening to spill. And though his head isn’t pounding and his trigger finger doesn’t itch, he feels every damn part of it. It's more difficult some days than others, and he can’t bring himself to pick up the phone, to let someone he trusts talk him through it. Maybe people like them do deserve this.

  
                                   ..

  
Days later, Frank’s leaving group therapy when his phone buzzes in his pocket twice in a row. It’s David, whose dozen missed calls and two texts set off an urgency in him.

Text 1: _Pick up._  
Text 2: _It’s important._

The phone buzzes again before he can even think about sending a text or dialing back.

“I think you might want to sit down for this one.”

Frank tenses up immediately, waits until he’s started up his truck and pulled out of the parking lot to say anything back. “What is it?”

There's a period of silence that follows Frank’s words, and it only makes it worse.

“Promise you won’t be mad.”

“Jesus,” Frank utters, hands tightening over the steering wheel. “What’re you, twelve? Just spit it out, Lieberman.”

“It’s Russo, Frank. Jigsaw is Billy Russo.”

 

He’s pulling into David’s driveway less than twenty minutes later, hands shaking so hard he thinks it’s impossible that he was able to drive.

“I dug it up it earlier, but you weren't picking up your phone.”

“It, it—” Frank tries to find the words to speak, has to grip the doorway to keep from trembling too hard. “It's definitely him?”

David’s eyes are tragic, an apology he shouldn't be offering written all over them. “Positive. You should sit down—”

“I'm okay,” he interrupts, panting, eyes darting around the open space of David’s parlor.

“You're _not_ , Frank,” his partner utters, watches him with a kind of worry from the short distance between them. “You can't even keep yourself up. Please, just, let me show you the information I found. Yeah?” David tries, reaches his hand out like he’ll touch him but thinks better of it.

He waits for Frank to talk, to do _anything_.

“Yeah,” Frank manages after a while, dragging his feet to follow David to the kitchen where his desk is.

An instant passes before David’s thumb is jabbed into the bright computer screen. There's an image taking up most of it. It's Billy, but it isn't. His face is all jagged scar tissue, torn tendons disguising what most people considered pretty. But it's undoubtedly him.

Frank sees David watching him in his peripheral vision, desperately hopes he doesn't hear his involuntarily sharp intake.

“I'm still working out the kinks but, according to the hospital’s database he woke up not too long ago. He's been busy. He’s been trafficking drugs, obscure weaponry for income,” David utters, pausing on the image of Billy’s distorted face, then: “Did you do that?”

“Yeah.”

His partner only nods, not the least bit shaken. He's used to this. “Why didn't you kill him?”

“The piece of shit deserves to live with what he's done.” Frank feels himself getting worked up all over again, finger itching to pull the trigger that isn't there, the trigger he should've pulled that night in the park instead of sending Billy to the intensive care unit.

David nods again, bites his bottom lip too hard. “I don't think it's a good idea to do anything without thinking it the through first.”

He must sense the dilemma in Frank too, because he follows it up with, “You taught me that.”

Frank ignores it. “Where is it?”

He knows David recognizes the demand in his voice, knows he isn't kidding. Still, the other man hesitates, taking a deep breath before giving Frank what he wants. “421 Jack Street. He's got his operation set up in some old warehouse downtown, but Frank—”

  
“I gotta do something,” Frank grits through his teeth, stands up so swiftly his head gets dizzy. “I gotta go there.”

“Whoa,” David immediates, stands up himself and blocks Frank where he tries to pass through the kitchen doorway. “What happened to ' _I just want to know?_ '”

“It's Billy goddamn Russo, that's what happened.”

David's eyebrows knit together, chest pounding so hard Frank can see it. There hasn't been this much traction between them since their days in the basement. “Then I’m going with you.”

Frank bites down on his lip, tastes the steel of dry blood and doesn't give a damn. There's always an obstacle with them, always David trying too much. “You can forget about it.”

“What, you don't want me involved? Even after you asked me to dig up the information?”

“You're goddamn right, I don’t.”

David stands taller, disbelief obvious. Frank knows that the other man knows he could get past him in the doorway if he wanted to, but he isn't intimidated. Maybe it's the urgency. Or the odd kind of trust they've developed.

“That’s bullshit.”

“Yeah?” Frank pushes, doesn't back down. “How's that?”

“You kidding me, Frank? Don't you know by now?”

David huffs in exasperation when he only stares him down. “See, I was under the impression that you and I were still a team.”

Frank takes a deep breath, tries not to think of the last time his partner used those words against him.

“I know you’re too proud to admit it,” David continues. “But you can’t do this on your own. Do you remember the last time you tried to take him on? You got the shit beat out of you, they almost _killed_ you.”

“David, I only want to say this once. You got a family to protect—”

“ _Yeah_ ,” David interrupts. “And you're part of it.”

Frank backs down then, shakes his head back and forth, tells himself his throat is tight because he's pissed. “Why do you do that?”

“Tell the truth, you mean?” David whispers then, stance loosening like he can tell what he professed is Frank’s weakness. “Don’t you think I’ve thought about that too, Frank? My _family_? Shit, it’s the only thing I think about these days.”

Neither of them yell, but it distinctly feels like it.

“I'm not letting you get involved this time, David." The words tumble out in tandem. “You got it? I'm just not.”

David doesn't budge an inch in the doorway.

“You’re goddamn impossible, Lieberman. Don't know when to back down.”

Frank pauses, tries a different method when the one he’s going for isn’t working. “You got the information. That's more than I should've asked you do in the first place.” The silence is drawn out this time, and it’s difficult to get the words out. He ducks his head, knows it’s wrong. “I'm not your problem anymore.”

“Is that what you think I thought back then?” David utters. His tone is tight, unusually dim. “Is that what you think now?”

“David, I—” Frank bites down on his tongue, tries not to let the wounded look that flashes through his partner’s eyes impact him. “Russo’s dangerous, okay?”

“Well, he thinks I'm dead,” David shoots back. “What difference does it make?”

“Jesus. _What difference_ ,” Frank utters in disbelief, jaw ticking.

He feels his pulse invigorate then. He can't take back what he said, can't make any of it okay. But he can try to get through to the other man.

He's pissed, worked up. But he likes to think David knows he wouldn’t take it out on him, not physically.

“If something happened to you,” he whispers because the people he's talking about are sleeping upstairs. “Your wife’d cut my throat out. You do know that, don't you? And those kids of yours? Those kids would tear me to pieces and I'd have no other option but to let them because their idiot dad got killed ‘cause of me.”

Frank makes sure David is looking directly at him before he continues, timbre deep, serious. “I'm not letting you get your damn hands dirty again, prick. Not after everything you and I did to get you back here. Yeah?”

It’s finally getting through to the other man, who downcasts his eyes, removes his tall form from the doorway.

Frank waits until David’s eyes are trained back on him. “You're not thinking—”

“I'm the one who's not thinking?”

“Just shut your damn mouth for once, will you? I'm trying to tell you something important.”

David takes a deep breath, physically holding back whatever it is he wants to say.

“Listen, David,” Frank utters, ducks his head so his partner knows he means it. “I know you're worried, but this isn’t Rawlins or Wolfe. This isn't your fight.”

David shakes his head then, laughs despite the fact that they're discussing kill tactics. “That's what you still don't understand, Frank. You put yourself out there for my family, you almost got yourself killed defending them. I can't pretend that didn't happen. I know you can't.”

“I did what I did ‘cause it was the right thing to do,” Frank utters. “You don't owe me shit.”

“That's the point,” David says. “I'm doing what _I_ think is right now. I won't go back out there, okay? But let me talk you through it. Let me keep digging for information. It's the least I can do,” he offers, shrugging and shoving his hands into his jacket pockets.

Frank feels himself nod, pulling oxygen through his dry lips and out his nose. “You do anything else, I'll personally kick your ass, got it?”

David let's out a deep sigh. “You're not going after him tonight?”

“Not tonight,” Frank utters. “But I'll look into his operation, see who I can get to talk.”

“Not tonight,” David repeats like it's the only part he took in.

Frank’s pulse slows for the first time in the past hour, then he's sitting down and David’s putting a drink in front of him at the table.

“You're a tough son of a bitch when you want to be,” Frank utters before he throws the drink back.

David’s face brightens a little, though he's too tense to let the usual grin widen over his face. It's profounding how the other man manages to be positive at all. “Told you not to underestimate me, didn't I?”

“Yeah,” Frank says, pats his partner on the back and is relieved that he doesn't twitch from it. They'll go over tactics pretty soon, he thinks. But this works for now. “Yeah, you did, prick.”

  
                                  ..

  
It takes one knock for Karen to open the door, sliding the deadbolt off immediately when she knows it’s him.

He’s insecure already, tentatively stepping inside but making sure not to go too far. Going too far would mean going back on his plan, would mean not wanting to go back out there.

Karen’s half dressed like she just woke up and it’s then Frank realizes he doesn’t know what time it is.

“I don't want to intrude, y’know,” he utters. “If you were trying to sleep or—”

“That's impossible,” she interrupts. “You won't ever be an intrusion, Frank.”

“I didn't wake you up?"

“I’ve been awake for a while,” she admits, doesn’t look him directly in the eye when she does. “Insomnia, you know?”

“Yeah,” he utters back. “Yeah, I do.”

She stands taller then, disappearing from the doorway.

  
They’re in the kitchenette when Frank tells her about Billy, when he tells her about what he did and that he isn’t dead yet.

“He knew, Karen,” he utters, doesn’t say it’s about who killed his family because she knows it’s what he’s talking about. “He goddamn knew and didn’t do a damn thing.”

The tension in his voice doesn’t make her shrink backward, doesn’t do a thing. "I thought you were done."

"I thought I was too."

“You want to pursue him.” Karen’s words are all tough fact and zero inquiry.

“His operation,” Frank utters. “Yeah. I want to know what I’m dealing with.”

Karen seems to take in the words. It’s difficult to tell how she feels when she’s so damn good at a poker face and he's so terrible at it.

He’s jittery, peering around at day-old drinks and inky papers spread all over the kitchenette’s thin countertops that tell him she’s been worried, been _digging_.

“You don’t want my help this time?” she figures out, voice dejected like she already knew why he dragged himself to her place at an ungodly hour.

Frank takes a deep breath, forcing himself not to pace. “I’m tellin’ you this ‘cause you deserve to know. I do _not_ want you involved, Karen. Not when it’s too dangerous. Not when you got your own shit to worry ‘bout.”

Discomfort tightens his chest as Karen watches him watch her back. He ducks his head, tries and fails to understand the indecipherable itch at the back of his throat.

“I, uh,” he utters, clearing his throat for the thousandth time. “I got David keeping an eye out for Fisk, so you don’t have to think about that. He’ll know if anything goes down.”

 _This wouldn't have anything to do with Karen Page’s involvement in the Fisk issue a while back, would it?_ David’d asked. But the prick already knew.

Karen’s got a palm blocking her mouth, head facing another direction. It’s a thing he’s seen before, a thing she does when she’s about to say something important. “Then who’s keeping an eye out for you?”

“Jesus, Karen.”

“I know,” she says before he does. “You can take care of yourself. But you shouldn’t have to all the time.”

He takes another deep breath then, nodding despite the disagreement prowling through his mind. He turns to the window, sees the dry, worn petals of a plant that was destined to die. It’s like there’s two people talking inside his head, two people thinking he’s the problem in every deteriorating bond he’s taken part in. It’d been that way before things got too dark. The only difference is now, he doesn't know how to make things work. He can’t face things or people all the way. Not yet.

“Karen,” he says, makes sure her name is purposeful on his tongue. “In case something goes wrong, I just gotta tell you—”

“Don’t do that, Frank,” she interrupts. “Please, don’t.”

When he looks at her, her bottom lip is trembling, eyes pooling with something indistinguishably profound. It's her tone that’s even, drawn out and uniform.

“There’ll be time for that after, right? There’ll be time.” Karen repeats the word like she needs to hear it just as much as he does, like it's the only thread they've got to hold onto even if it'll probably break.

“Yeah,” he says. It's all he can think to say.

They inch toward each other until he’s the one to pull her into the hug this time. He doesn't instantly tense up like someone who's been touch deprived. He holds on too tight, presses a barely-there kiss to her temple.

Then he's backing out of it, needing to go before he can talk himself out of what he plans to do, before Karen tries to.

He's almost out the door when he's interrupted.

“Frank.”

He stops at the plea in her voice, turns his head so only his profile shows, doesn’t trust himself to turn the whole way.

When she talks, there’s something unusual to it. _Uncertainty_. “You’ll be back?”

 _You don’t have to make it right_ , he imagines her telling him, imagines telling himself. _It isn’t your job_. It might be true, too. But it's also true that there are things that can’t be undone.

It takes one glance back at Karen to know why Billy Russo’s got to die.

“I’ll be back.”

  
                                  ..

  
The Kitchen is darker than it used to be, all drowned in tones of black and blue and inevitable despair no matter what or who tries to oppose it. Now that he takes the implicit time to notice, every individual he passes on the street is drenched in it. They’re identical and blank face and making it damn near impossible to be _Pete_.

He tries because there's Karen and David and Curtis and even Dinah Madani’s words ironing themselves into his mind. But he still can't keep his trigger finger from itching, not when he passes torn down buildings in which he used to kill terrible men. Not when Billy Russo is out there.

  
                                     ..

  
Driving down Jack Street is a bad idea, an even worse one when he sees the distinct figure in the dark.

The devil is standing outside by the time he pulls up to the warehouse in his truck. Frank bites down on his tongue, slams the door shut and trudges to the place where the other man stands between him and the place he needs to be. He doesn’t even flinch as Frank stops mere inches away, breathing too deeply, trembling too hard. He’s got an inkling that their talk isn’t going to be so friendly this time.

“Not out here to kill Jigsaw, Red,” Frank says, teetering on the edge of yelling, jaw clenched tight as they stand off by the back entrance. It’s true, but it doesn't feel like it. “You need to stay outta the way.”

Red is observant, knows Frank’s got a pistol in his back pocket and a knife up his jacket sleeve, knows he plans to use them. “But you do plan on killing his men tonight. You do plan to kill Jigsaw eventually.”

“That’s none of your goddamn business.”

“You need to trust me, Frank.”

“Yeah, why’s that?” Frank demands. “Why should I _trust_ you?”

The other man begins to speak until Frank interrupts. “You knew it was Russo that night and you didn’t say a damn thing.”

“I didn’t tell you because I knew this is what you’d try to do.”

“That ain’t good enough, Red. It’s just not fuckin’ good enough.”

The devil falls silent for an instant, lip tucked between his teeth before he’s trying again. “I got Wilson Fisk indicted,” he whispers. “I can put this guy in prison too.”

Frank has to resist the urge to pound his fist into the wall. He’s pacing before he knows it, too many incomplete thoughts rushing through his head in tandem. They’ve done this before, done it too many times. “You think that’s what I want? For this piece of shit to go to fuckin’ jail? You’re not thinkin’, see, I need to _kill_ him. I need to watch him die.”

He pauses, inhaling deeply through his nose and out his lips as the trembling worsens. “Did you know Karen’s terrified that Fisk’ll come after her?”

He watches Red twitch in discomfort and keeps going.

“Yeah. Thinks he’ll get outta prison and try to kill her. That wouldn’t be happening if you knew how to get the damn job done.”

“This isn’t about Karen,” the devil utters, head ducked like he can’t face the truth in Frank’s words.

“That right?” Frank grits through his teeth. “Does she even know about you? Does she know you’re out here playing hero instead of buried twenty feet under?”

Red laughs then, _goddamn_ laughs and it makes it that much more difficult for Frank to keep his head intact. “You know, that’s interesting coming from you, Frank.” The devil pauses, head tilting toward the dark sky. “How many times’ve you died in the past year? Two? Three?”

Frank laughs too, then. It’s all irony and tension. “Yeah, ‘least I owned up to it. ‘Least I didn’t disappear when people needed me to be there. I didn’t stay in the dark while pieces of shit like the kingpin tore apart your precious city.”

The devil physically tenses and Frank detects it. He’s digging and it’s working. “You think I wanted to do that? You think I wanted them to think I was gone for good?”

“I wouldn’t know, Red,” Frank utters. “We’re too different, isn’t that what you think?”

“You truly want to know what I think?” the other man presses, an inch of distance the only thing between them now.

Though Frank doesn’t answer, the devil wastes no time in making his point.

“I think you don’t want to do this. In your head, you want to kill Jigsaw because of what he took from you, but," he pauses, head tilting just as Frank’s pulse increases. “I think you’re pissed off and scared and it’s clouding your judgment.”

He’ll never understand how the devil digs so deep, knows so much while still choosing the be willfully ignorant.

“I’ve got people to take care of too, Frank. People whose deaths I can’t undo, but this,” he whispers. “This isn’t the way.”

Frank wonders if the devil detects the change in his heartbeat the way he detects his bullshit.

“This is private shit, Red. Why don’t you just take the tights off and call it a day.”

 _I don’t want to have to kill you too_ , he wants to say. But he wouldn't go through with it. He couldn’t kill the devil back then and he can’t tonight. He doesn’t kill innocent people. Not even the ones who infuriate him.

The devil isn't shaken despite the fact that they’re in each other’s faces, prepared to fight if that’s what it comes to. He ignores Frank’s words. “I can’t let you do this, Frank.”

“Yeah?” Frank whispers though he wants to yell. “Why’s that, altar boy?”

“I think you already know why.”

Frank steps back then, eyes darting around for any other way inside the old building the operation is set up in. It’s close enough to touch.

“This is pathetic, you know that?” he utters. “Being underfoot, standing out here like some damn guard dog for a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve it? A piece of shit who’d probably kill you if the opportunity came up?”

“I’m only doing my job. I’m watching over this—”

“Man, Red,” Frank interrupts. “Just when I think you get it—just when I think you _understand_ , you pull this prophetic bullshit. You’re good with words, yeah? But that’s it. You’re all talk. See, I pull through. I get the job done. I still don’t get why they called you _Daredevil_ , y’know. You take the easy way out every damn time.”

The other man ignores the jab. He takes it in stride, somehow stands taller like the insult does the opposite of what it’s supposed to. Time ticks on and he doesn’t say a thing, doesn't budge an inch.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

The devil utters _I’ve been told_ just as Frank steps past him, hand wrapped around the back door’s steel handle for only an instant before the devil’s pushing him back.

“I can tell you don’t want to do this,” he says, again like it’ll make any kind of difference.

Frank brushes dust off his jacket. He doesn't want to tell himself it might be true. “You can tell, huh?”

“Yes.”

Frank tries for the door again, is only pushed back with more force this time. He bites down on his tongue, tastes what he thinks is blood pooling from too much pressure. “You done?”

Still, the devil doesn’t move.

“You don’t know shit about this, Red.” His voice is dangerously low, tumbling out like a blunt instrument with no target. “That piece of shit in there took everything from me. And yeah, maybe he didn’t pull the goddamn trigger but he knew. He killed my wife. Killed my _kids_.”

There’s a wretched, ugly sound that escapes his throat before he can stop it and there’s a downward twist to Red’s lips as he takes it in. It isn’t just about the dead. It’s about Karen and David. Zach and Leo and that traumatized kid from group therapy.

  
“Is this even about Jigsaw?” Red pushes. “They’re dead, Frank. You killed the people responsible for your family’s deaths. This isn’t for them. It’s for _you_.”

“Yeah, so what if it is? So what if I want one goddamn moment of peace?”

“You’ve told me that before, but it didn’t work then, did it? What makes you think tonight would be any different?”

The pounding in the back of Frank’s head makes it difficult to process the words. He doesn’t want to admit that they might be true, that they probably are true.

“You want to know what I think, too, Red? I think maybe you should’ve just stayed dead.”

“Think about them, Frank,” the devil whispers, ignores Frank yet again. “They wouldn’t want you to—”

Frank interrupts, and he isn’t sure if it’s about his dead family or those breathing but it’s too much either way.

“Don’t you dare do that, Red. Don’t you use them against me like that.”

“I’m sorry,” the other man says, and Frank wishes it didn’t mean anything. “We can do this together,” he tries. “We can be partners.”

Frank snorts so his tears don’t spill. “Position’s taken.”

“We can still be teammates.”

 _Teammates_. The individual word ingrains itself into his head with a trifling pressure until he wants to tear it out, punch it to death.

“You and I will never be teammates, Red,” he utters, jittery, distracted. Probably what the devil wants. “Thought you knew that.”

The other man seems willing to back down, pushing off the building. It almost looks like he’ll disappear until he takes a step into Frank’s private space, furthering his philosophical debate. “This isn’t the Dogs of Hell or the Irish or—”

“You’re goddamn right,” Frank interrupts. “It’s worse.”

He doesn’t know if it’s his hands or his words that’re shaking. He thinks of the time he and David got drunk together that first time, the time his partner told him not-too-kindly and all-too-truly that _you’ve got nothing but a war inside you._ David took it back, but drunk words are sober thoughts and he wasn’t wrong.

It's the same thing as that night too many ions ago when Red’d told him _you’re still at war._

The devil starts to walk away then, disappearing into the dark when Frank yells after him.

“Think you’re Iron Man, Red? Think you’re gonna save the world?”

The devil’s voice is distorted, timbre off-key. His back is turned when he utters, “This is the only place I’m trying to protect.”

  
                                  ..

  
He drives often these days because staying in one place is too difficult. There isn’t any destination. It brings him tranquility, forces him to think about something other than his dilemma.

He’s driving through downtown Queens when his phone buzzes. It’s none other than Dinah Madani’s voice on the other end. His fingers wrap tighter around the wheel, foot pushing down with too much pressure on the gas pedal. The Homeland agent is just about the last person he’d expect on the phone that’s number he’s only willingly given to three people.

“You didn't get out of town,” she deadpans.

“You didn't either,” he says.

He can practically feel her frustration, hears her take a deep breath before getting to the point. “Stop digging, Castle. Let us and the NYPD do our jobs.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Madani. Nobody over there is looking into this shit. Nobody else gives a damn.”

“That isn’t true,” comes her reply, and she sounds just as unshakable over the phone as she does in person.

“You telling me Homeland is looking into an operation that doesn't technically exist?”

“ _I_ am,” she says immediately.

“Think maybe the bullet you took to the head was worse than you thought.”

“No worse than the one you took.”

Frank snorts at that, darts his tongue out to wet his lips. “You and me, then, huh Madani?”

There’s a pause when he puts her on speaker phone, then her staticky voice comes through. “You and I both know that’s bullshit, Castle. If I know anything about you, and I think I do, you’ve got others in on it.”

“Wasn’t my decision,” he utters.

“It must be unfortunate having people give a damn about you,” she says, and he resists the urge to hang up or tell her off.

He feels his pulse invigorate. “How’d you get this number, anyway?”

“Would you kick Lieberman’s ass if I told you it was him?” she toys with him, still manages to get to him when she isn't there in person. “Or maybe it was Karen Page.”

Frank’s finger tighten impossibly over the wheel as he turns a corner too sharply. This is the part of town where people tend to stare. “Don’t play with me, Madani. This isn’t a goddamn joke.”

“I want Billy dead, too.”

 _Billy_ , she says, instead of Russo. He isn’t sure what to think of it. “I doubt it.”

“You do it your way then,” she says, and it sounds distinctly like the permission he didn’t ask for. He thinks she’s upset but it’s difficult to tell when everything she says is to the point. “And you keep telling yourself you’re the only one who knows anything important about the things that matter.”

 _Jesus_ , Frank thinks, then hangs up because Madani’s voice pricks at him in all the wrong ways.

It hits him then, all at once: he isn't the only one who's terrified.

  
                                  ..

  
He’s walking through another dark alley in The Kitchen the next night when a fist knocks him in the jaw. He’s up immediately, backing himself into a dense wall as he takes in over a dozen men inching toward him.

They’re whispering between themselves, trying to be discreet though Frank hears every word.

Frank pants, takes in their uniforms. They’re _Billy’s_ men. The one’s he would’ve already taken out if he weren't interrupted by the devil the other night.

He pushes back the thought, feels for the piece in his back pocket. He takes them on, but there are too many of them. They surround him, kicking and punching until it’s difficult to keep fighting. Of course Bill’s too pathetic to face him himself, he thinks. The traitor does what traitors do, sends his guard dogs out to do the dirty work instead.

One of them has a knife hidden in a jacket sleeve, gets him a good inch in the side before he snaps the perpetrator’s wrist.

After too much back and forth, Frank kills all but one of them.

“ _Who do you work for,_ ” he demands, pulls the piece of shit’s tie so tight he’s got to beg for oxygen. He presses his pistol into the man’s temple with enough pressure to draw blood. He knows the answer but he wants to test them, wants to see if they’ve got any real power or if they’re just in it to get paid.

_One batch. Two batch. Penny and dime._

The man struggling for breath forces out a dense _Jigsaw_ the instant before Frank twists his neck.

The pain shoots up his spine then, the rush from killing after too much time wearing off. It's as if his body knows it's okay to back down once it's over. The alley is decorated in dead bodies. It's all dark around him as he falls to his knees, the stab wound in his torso burning terribly.

The last thing he thinks he remembers before drifting in and out is being dragged off by the devil, who’d waited until he got his ass thoroughly kicked to join the scene. It’s like he knows where to be but not when to be there, Frank thinks in his delirium.

 _You're too late, Red_ , he thinks as he drifts impossibly further into his own depths. _It's over._

 _It’s a difficult choice_ , he thinks the other man says. It’s difficult to tell.

Despite everything, even if they’re both too proud to admit it, they’ve still got each other’s backs. Red doesn't know how to kill people, but he sure as hell knows how to keep them from dying.

  
There’s an enraged pounding in his temple when the tone of a familiar voice pulls him into waking. There’s a thumb tucked under his jaw, probably checking for the tell tale sign of a pulse.

“Take it easy, Frank. Don’t try to move.”

Frank has to ingest deeply just to get the word out. “Red?”

“Who?” the voice utters back. “Frank, it’s David. You were knocked out. You're injured.”

Frank finally comes to, opening his eyes only to squint against the brightness invading his irises. David leans over him to block the dim light.

“You’re okay, it’s okay,” David utters when he notices him watching, dirtied hands working on stitching the gaping wound in Frank’s torso. “Welcome back from the dead.”

Frank jolts up then, tries and fails to ignore the pain that shoots through his whole body. His hands are trembling and there’s something dangerously close to the urge to escape prowling inside him, but David isn’t taken aback. He’d been prepared for this.

“Where—”

“In the back of the van,” his partner interrupts. “Just keep still, you got pushed around pretty bad.”

Frank remains silent, panting as he peers down at the open first aid kit and then to David’s worried expression.

“You’re not gonna call me an asshole for driving out here?”

“The thought did cross my mind,” Frank manages back.

There's something like trust and understanding prowling through David’s eyes when Frank tilts his head to peer back at the other man. Enough trust to leave a loaded gun on his chest, enough understanding to give him space to pull himself together while David watches at the kind of tight distance the back of a van provides.

“David,” he utters, and it’s still difficult to talk around the pain in his throat. “What happened?”

“Thought you dragged yourself out at first,” David shrugs. “Got a text from an unknown number, found you behind a dumpster. I’m sure you can just imagine my delight at discovering you half dead at 4 o’clock in the morning.”

Frank jolts again, the only thing he knows how to do when he’s backed into a corner. Physically, he’s okay. Mentally, he’s still taking on too many opponents.

“Whoa,” his partner says when Frank tries to get up, the sharp pain of a needle prodding his skin. “Take it easy, Frank. Keep still. Let me stitch you up without poking you, yeah?”

He does what he’s told because he’s too weak to protest and his temple is pounding. “Did you see ‘im?”

David’s head tilts in contemplation. “Who?”

“The devil.”

“Jesus,” David says, teeth tearing open yet another bandage and tape. “You hit your head that damn hard?”

Frank lifts his fist to punch the other man, but he's too tired to put anything into it. “Shut the hell up, asshole.”

“There it is.” David laughs deep in his throat. Then, after a while: “So you know the Devil of Hell's Kitchen? The dead one?”

“Yeah, somethin' like that.”

“Why doesn't that shock me,” David utters under his breath, hand steady as it patches one of Frank’s innumerable injuries. “He the one that kick your ass this time?” Frank call tell David’s trying to joke, but there's disappointment under the surface of it.

“Jigsaw’s men.” It’s easier to use the dumb name than to utter _Billy_ or _Russo_ , easier to pretend it's someone else and not the person he used to consider his goddamn brother.

But it's the same damn guy. The same one who stabbed him in the back, took the whole universe from his hands.

"I took them all out."

In his peripheral vision, Frank see’s David open a pill bottle and twist the cap to a thing of water. He drops two of the pills into Frank’s open palm and sets the water down.

David let's out an exasperated sigh when he hesitates to take it. “It's ibuprofen, Frank. It won't kill you. Unlike other things,” he utters as an afterthought.

“Hey,” Frank says, voice scratchy and deep even after he gulps down the water. “You knew this was a possibility.”

“You getting nearly beat to death? Yeah, doesn't mean I have to like it. _Hey kids, remember your friend Pete? He's dead_.”

“Jesus christ, you sound like Karen when you talk like that. You gonna say I told you so, too?”

“I don’t have to,” David utters. “You just did.”

David takes in Frank’s other injures, an undisguisable sound of disgust leaving his throat as he sees some of the uglier ones.

“Thought you wanted to be a doctor.”

“ _Wanted to be_ being the key terminology here,” David says. Then, he’s patching up the last visible injury and pulling himself into the driver’s seat. “I can only pray there isn’t any internal bleeding.”

“Don’t think there is.”

“Well, there’s one good thing to come out of tonight.”

“David,” Frank says. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Frank. I know,” David utters. “They jumped you, right? There wasn’t anything you could’ve done about that.”

“But about Bill—”

“You’ve done enough,” David interrupts. “Billy Russo’ll still be there, you'll get your justice.”

“I need to tell Kare—”

“Already done,” David interrupts again. “Texted her as soon as I knew.”

“You and her talk?”

“Not often,” his partner utters, then makes a sound of contemplation. “Jesus, pretty much only when something terrible happens to you. You okay with that?”

“Just thrilled,” Frank laughs despite the pain it causes in his gut, sees David upside down when he tilts his head up to watch him driving. “You couldn’t tell?”

“Well, I didn’t know how’d you feel about it,” his partner pushes, glances back for a moment, teases like it's his defense mechanism. “You tend to be kind of, uh. _Unpredictable_.”

Frank doesn’t respond. He lets tears spill and tries to keep it from David, tries to focus only on the vibration of the tires beneath them, moving over the pavement with an ease he’s jealous of.

“I've been thinking about what you said,” David whispers after a while. “About my family, about if I—you know. I think about them all the time, Frank. Zach and Leo? My wife? They’re it. And I know yours were it for you, too. And I know you need to do things that I don’t understand all the time, but I’m trying to.”

Frank shuts his eyes to stop the tears from pooling too quickly. They taste terrible, sting the wounds on his face.

“Thank you,” he utters, doesn’t know if his partner hears it but prays he does, prays he understands that he means it every damn time.

Then Frank thinks of his wife’s smile in the morning, thinks of her kissing him, his face, the place between his eyes. He thinks of his kids, pretending to get along because they knew it made him happy after being away from them for ten months.

He thinks of Karen, the warmth she provides involuntarily. David and his dumb jokes, the dangerous intelligence he possesses. Then he’s thinking about Zach and Leo, about how he won’t visit them for a while because he doesn’t ever let them see him bruised up.

And as much as he despises it, he thinks of Billy, too. Thinks of his ugly, torn up face. Thinks of the way he’ll kill him slowly and painfully along with the memories of the piece of shit playing uncle to his kids, posing for family photos at the park like he didn't know they'd die in the exact same spot.

Frank’ll kill him one day. He'll be the one to do it.

**Author's Note:**

>  _"When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is unbearable and trifling."_  
>  — Yann Martel
> 
> Thank you to everybody who took the time out of their day for this.


End file.
